TIRE BUILDING APPARATUS AND METHOD

An apparatus is disclosed comprising: a tire building drum; an application conveyor that is configured to apply a breaker or a green rubber tread to the tire building drum; a machine vision system that is configured for generating a three dimensional image of the tire building drum as the breaker or the green rubber tread is applied to the tire building drum; a tread or breaker guiding system that is configured for determining a lateral position of the green rubber tread as applied to the tire building drum or of the breaker on the application conveyor; and at least one processor circuit with a memory comprising instructions, that when executed by the processor circuit, causes the at least one processor circuit to at least: identify a center of the green rubber tread or of the breaker in the three dimensional image; identify a difference between the center of the green rubber tread or of the breaker and a target position of the tire building drum in the three dimensional image; and apply the difference as a tread position feedback error or as a breaker position feedback error to the tread or breaker guiding system that determines a position of a subsequent green rubber tread breaker transferred onto the application conveyor or of a subsequent green rubber tread as applied to the tire building drum. Also, respective methods are disclosed.